THE SPY WHO LOVED ME
Directed by LEWIS GILBERT Screenplay by CHRISTOPHER WOOD and RICHARDMAIBAUM
Jottings found on the screening-room floor after a critics' viewing of the new James Bond film:
They'll never top first stunt: skier hurtles off precipice. Long breathtaking plunge. Shucks off skis in midair, free-falls for a while, then opens parachute and floats earthward. Wow.
Does anybody know this flick has nothing to do with 1962 novel of same name, since Ian Fleming nixed sale of anything but title to movies? Does anybody care? All that's left of Bond formula here is 007 character, sexy starlets and gee-whiz gadgets. (Question: What else did it ever consist of?)
Plot seems snipped from previous installments. Bond tangles with female Russian spy: From Russia with Love. They team up against seagoing megalomaniac who captures nuclear subs belonging to both East and West and plans to destroy world: shades of Diamonds Are Forever. Lots of underwater stuff: Thunderball. Also skiing: On Her Majesty 's Secret Service. (Think about: Curt Jurgens, as megalomaniac, pronounces O07's name Bund. This hint he's crypto-Nazi? Farfetched, but can anything be too farfetched in a film like this?)
Amphibian Bondmobile. Series getting awfully ingrown. Sexual innuendo coarser. In London HQ, Bond reported to be on assignment in Austria, meaning he's doing you-know-what in front of fireplace in Alpine hideaway. Thunders M: "Tell him to pull out—immediately!" Only moment of real wit: amphibian Bondmobile drives into sea and becomes two-seater submarine; it veers to elude underwater pursuers, but only after flashing turn signal—for the wrong direction.
New Bond girl, Barbara Bach. Very pretty, especially as seen in cushioned escape bubble. But dewy as a debutante ("Oh! James!"). Hard to believe her as dangerous spy. Where are the Honor Blackmans and Diana Riggs of yesteryear? Roger Moore, as Bond, a road-company Sean Connery. At least he's improvement on that instant-trivia question, George Lazenby.
Good gadgets: wristwatch radio with tape printout of messages received. Hollow cigarette that blows knockout gas. Flying tea tray that decapitates human target.
Best gadget of all is human one —seven-foot thug with preternatural strength and steel teeth, which he uses to snap victims' spinal cords. Name: Jaws. Orthodontist's nightmare. Running gag is that each time he is dispatched—trapped in building cave-in, flung from speeding train, tossed into shark tank, even torpedoed—Jaws (Richard Kiel) implacably reappears. In his silly, mechanical, likable way, a perfect symbol for Bond films. They're attacked, dismissed, put out of mind, but keep coming back and back and back.
(Nope. Never did top that first Stunt.)